Senate passes N574.532b supplementary budget

The amount passed is N108, 895,800,000 higher than N465,636,926,857 billion submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly for consideration and approval.

The N108.895 billion was added by the Senate as additional fund meant to pay fuel subsidy claims between October to December 2015.

The sum of N120 billion was provided in the supplementary budget as arrears of fuel subsidy claims (carry over) from 2014 while the sum of N292 billion was provided for payment of claims of subsidy for January to September 2015.

As indicated in the amendment to the 2015 Fiscal Framework, the Supplementary Budget is to be funded through borrowing.

Before endorsing the Supplementary Budget for implementation by the Executive, the Senate went into a lengthy closed session to discuss and agree on the modalities to pass the fiscal document.

The Senate had on November, 2015 read for the first time 2015 Supplementary Appropriation Bill in the sum of N465,636,926,857 billion submitted to it by President Buhari.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje who presented the report of his committee for consideration and approval said that the Bill fundamentally sought to among other things, make available additional funds for the fight against insurgency in the North-East and payment of outstanding subsidy claims in order to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians.

Goje noted that the provision for subsidy only covered year 2014 arrears of N120.5 billion and the claims of January-September, 2015 of N292 billion.

He stressed the need to provide additional funding in the sum of N108, 895,800,000 only for fuel subsidy for the months of October, November and December 2015 “to ensure that the 2016 budget takes off on a clean slate.”

He said that the issue of the additional subsidy claims came up in the course of clarification of the total subsidy need for the year ending 2015, by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

Goje said that the provision for Victim Support Fund (N5b) in the Capital Supplementary should have been made in the Service Wide Vote since it is a Federal Government contribution to a fund managed by a Committee which is not an MDA of government.

He also stressed the need to adjust the proposed amendment to the 2015 Fiscal Framework to capture the additional funding need of N108.895 billion for fuel subsidy.

The committee chair said that “With the Supplementary Bill, including the additional funding need of fuel subsidy, the total aggregate expenditure for the fiscal year 2015 will be the sum of N4,493,363,957,158 in the 2015 Appropriation Act, the proposed sum of N465,636,926,857 and the additional funding need of N108,895,800,000 for fuel subsidy amounting to N5,067,896,684,015 trillion.

The passed budget included N10,618,837,435 outstanding payment of the severance gratuity and allowances of outgone and incoming legislators and legislative aides; N3,196 billion for the Nigerian Army, N1.5 billion for National Sports Commission Headquarters; N559,217,800,017 FOR Service Wide Vote, including N29,958,865,512 for Operation Zaman Lafiya (fight against insurgency).

Senate Leader, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume who moved that the Senate should pass the Supplementary Budget noted that having looked at the importance and timing of the Bill, the only people who benefit from fuel subsidy are the marketers.

Ndume noted that Senate is worried that subsidy claims have continued to increase in the past few years even when the Seventh Senate investigated that development it has not stopped.

The Borno South lawmaker lamented that the Senate is being blackmailed to pass the subsidy budget “because not doing so would amount to the fuel queues remaining.”

He said that the Senate is left with no option than to pass the subsidy component. He added that the only option for the Senate is to investigate the claims.

Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godwill Akpabio, who also supported the passage of the Supplementary Budget noted that what he would consider true change would be zero subsidy so that at the end of the day, Nigerians would be spared the problem of whether there was subsidy scam or not.

Akpabio said that part of the change in 2016 would be to address the issue of subsidy adding that appropriate Senate committee must ensure that the subsidy claims were genuine.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi said that the Senate mandated its Committees on Petroleum, Army and Anti-Corruption to be at alert to ensure that the subsidy claims are genuine.

On the subsidy for the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Goje said his committee and other relevant committees would take up the issue with the ministry.

The committee chairman had been asked how and where NNPC gets its subsidy for the 48 percent of products it imports.

Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who summed the contributions of Senators after the passage of the bill said, “I want to on behalf of our colleagues thank the committee for the work that they have done to have been able too deliver this report as requested.

“It is clear that this supplementary budget that we have passed we have looked at both the request of the executive and particularly the sufferings of Nigerians to ensure that we see that this thing is done.

“At the same time we want to warn the ministries and agencies in charge of this expenditure to make sure that these funds are judiciously used.

“The oversight committees particularly Appropriation, Petroleum (downstream) Anti-corruption, we must expose with hope of sanction, any of these companies or agencies that take the opportunity because of the suffering of Nigerians to abuse this amount of money.

“This is a huge amount of money and I even believe that the so called economic sabotage agencies this is where their work is.

“This is truly economic sabotage where billions of naira are being approved but not judiciously used.

“Our committee on Anti-corruption must play a role to oversee every single payment.

“We have made provisions till December so we must ensure that this money is used properly.

“This issue of fuel subsidy, I want us all, all Nigerians, we must say no to this blackmail by marketers. We must put an end to this issue.

“A lot of us in the past have spoken on this matter and I think we are doing this for the interest of Nigerians but I think it is high time we say no to this blackmail and end this hardship.

“We must consider this in 2016. I think the committee on Petroleum both downstream and upstream as well as committee on Anti-corruption should oversight and make necessary recommendations to the Senate for further legislative action on this matter.”